There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.